Squad news

THINKING OF BARCELONA

03 Dec 2009Lotina thinks of using Juca for the match against Barcelona as he prepares a new 4-3-3 scheme for the clash, meanwhile Guardiola is using the rotations, but new Golden Boot award winner, Lionel Messi, could be a starter at the Riazor.

It seems that coach Miguel Angel Lotina has a very clear idea of the lineup that he will use against Barcelona; on Wednesday he divided his squad in two defined groups, the first one was composed by ten of the eleven starters at El Sardinero, these men were Aranzubía, Manuel Pablo, Lopo, Filipe, Colotto, Sergio, Juan Rodríguez, Antonio Tomás, Guardado, Mista and Riki, they were joined by Juca and by Fabril’s keeper Diego Rivas. The group trained in the morning during a two-hour session.

The only starter against Racing that wasn’t part of the training was Lassad Nouioui, the Tunisian is out with a stress fracture and won’t return until January. Also out is Brayan Angulo, the Colombian was operated due to a knee ligaments problem and won’t be ready before April of the next year.

Clearly, Lotina is attempting to present a 4-3-3 scheme, but the two questions still to be solved are: Which is the disposition of the players on the pitch? And will Juca play? Juca hasn’t participated in an official game within the last two months and has been gaining match fitness since the past week. The Brazilian was the only man of the first squad that worked in the two training sessions programmed by Lotina for Wednesday, which demonstrates that the coach is seriously thinking in using him as starter for Saturday’s clash.

Also to notice that twelve players (plus Diego Rivas) were present in the first training session, which could be interpreted as a proof that Lotina has two lineups on his mind, and the ‘joker card‘ for this is Juca, because his presence on the pitch will determine the positons of the rest. One of the possibilities is to play with the Brazilian joining Sergio and Antonio Tomás at midfield, which will move Juan Rodriguez back to the right wing leaving Mista sited on the bench.

The other figure means to present almost the same squad that played in Santander: with the combination Sergio-Antonio Tomás-Juan Rodríguez at the centre of the pitch and with the only modification of Andrés Guardado replacing injured Lassad. This figure also means the continuity of Mista in the starting eleven and to reserve Juca for the clash at Almeria.

On Wednesday’s evening, the rest of the squad worked at Abegondo and later played a friendly match against Deportivo B. The players on this session were: Marcos Valín, Manu, Ze Castro, Adrián, Adrián López ‘Piscu’, Laure, Iván Pérez, Pablo Álvarez, Bodipo, Valerón and Juca. The friendly match with Fabril ended 1-1 with goals scored by French central defender Karl and Bodipo.

After this second session ended, Juca talked to Radio Galega and said that he’s ready to play, “It has been a while and I was expecting to train and play a game like this one, though it was only a friendly, but it was important for me. I felt fine and now we are at the disposition of the coach. It will be a tough game in which everybody wants to play. “

At Barcelona, coach Pep Guardiola was complaining because his team is playing two straight games late at night (Xérez and Deportivo), “This means a problem to be fully recovered in the next day and to maintain the proper nutrition. We also have to remember that later we need to complete a four-hour journey (to Kiev) in which we are playing for staying alive in Europe.” The coach said before the game at Xérez.

These declarations could mean that Barca’s coach will rest several of his ‘stars’ for the Champions League clash against Dynamo Kyiv. However, against CD Xérez, Guardiola already rested Messi, Ibrahimovic and Iniesta, which could also mean that this trio will start against Depor and also against the Ukrainians.